Saturday, July 11, 2015

Make a Pincushion Fast and Easy!

I have small pieces of pre-washedWoolFelt® that I practice new stitches and ideas on. I've been working on some projects using embroidered text, and I've been using Glad Press'n Seal to transfer the design to the fabric.

Although I love to use Ophir Silk Threads from Colour Streams in Australia, I often use Valdani Threads, too. Ophir is silk and has a beautiful sheen, and Valdani is cotton. They look totally different when stitched. Valdani blends into the WoolFelt®, so the look is very subtle.

I was trying out a new color of Valdani on a scrap of hydrangea felt with some new text. Script is easy to embroider if it's large enough. I did learn a couple of things experimenting with this: 1. Use a heavier weight of thread as the size of the text is increased and 2. Always begin with the darkest shade of the thread at the beginning of the word to give it more definition. In the stitched sample, the "s" looks like an afterthought. The text itself almost disappears into the fabric, too.

I had just received some new, Square Pincushion Inserts from the same company that makes the Round Pincushion Inserts. Because I don't like to waste anything if I can help it, I decided to finish the stitching and make a little pincushion with the new square insert. These are pre-made and filled with crushed walnut shells.

I'm still auditioning beads and ribbons to finish this, but when the stitching is done I will simply wrap it around one of the square inserts. They are filled rather loosely, so I folded it over itself to make it smaller and firmer and thicker.

I'll overlap the edges on the back, and sew it closed with a feather stitch. I'll sew the short edges closed with some of the beads that I used to highlight the embroidery to complete it.